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Shop Online with Amazon.com and Help NAMI
Pennsylvania, Too!
Every purchase you make through Amazon.com
can help NAMI PA improve the lives of people living with serious mental
disorders.
Here's how it works:
- Click on a link or banner here in the NAMI PA site to visit Amazon.com.
- For anything you purchase, from one of the categories
below NAMI PA will automatically receive a percentage of the
total sale (5 percent, on average). Popular categories for mental health
information are: Books
about Mental Illness, or on DVD,
or Video
.
- You'll get the convenience of shopping online with one of the Web's
biggest retailers, and at the same time will be helping NAMI PA help others,
all at absolutely no extra cost to you -- just remember to click one of the
special links from our site!
NAMI PA also features several direct links to Amazon.com
products in the NAMI PA site. Purchasing these featured products will
also benefit NAMI PA.
Two Ways to Shop
Enter Amazon.com
and start shopping! (opens a new browser window).
OR
Browse our selection of featured items below to purchase a specific product (Note:
NAMI PA's percentage of the sale is generally higher for these items that we
link to directly ).
More Gift Ideas:
 The
Bipolar Advantage
by Tom Wootton
Unorthodox, but wise perspectives that will help you look at your life in a
fresh light... A bipolar must. --Peter Russell (Author From Science to God, The
Global Brain Awakens)
Product Description
The Bipolar Advantage is a revelation. It is one man's journey through the
darkness and light of the bipolar condition to a place of spiritual joy,
functionality and excellence that holds lessons for everyone with a diagnosis of
bipolar.
Raw, honest and brazen, The Bipolar Advantage draws its examples from the
real-life experiences of its author, other people with a bipolar diagnosis and
those who have relationships with bipolar people. Pulling no punches, Tom
Wootton paints a realistic picture of the bipolar condition in its many faces,
then gently guides the reader through the steps necessary to lead an
introspective life that greatly ameliorates those symptoms, with the ultimate
goal of helping bipolar people gain control of their lives.
Tom takes the reader on a journey through the good and bad aspects of
bipolar, transforming negatives into positives and nurturing a mental
environment where bipolar people can reshape their views of their condition and
move fluidly from concepts of illness to excellence.
Ultimately, The Bipolar Advantage will stand as a guide book for those who
don't want to accept a diminished view of their lives after a diagnosis of
bipolar. It s a road map to wellness and strength that will stand the test of
time and the changing winds of popular bipolar treatment modalities.
Buy the: Book
 The
Depression Advantage
by Tom Wootton
Unorthodox, but wise perspectives that will help you look at your life in a
fresh light... A bipolar must. --Peter Russell (Author From Science to God, The
Global Brain Awakens)
Product Description
The Bipolar Advantage is a revelation. It is one man's journey through the
darkness and light of the bipolar condition to a place of spiritual joy,
functionality and excellence that holds lessons for everyone with a diagnosis of
bipolar.
Raw, honest and brazen, The Bipolar Advantage draws its examples from the
real-life experiences of its author, other people with a bipolar diagnosis and
those who have relationships with bipolar people. Pulling no punches, Tom
Wootton paints a realistic picture of the bipolar condition in its many faces,
then gently guides the reader through the steps necessary to lead an
introspective life that greatly ameliorates those symptoms, with the ultimate
goal of helping bipolar people gain control of their lives.
Tom takes the reader on a journey through the good and bad aspects of
bipolar, transforming negatives into positives and nurturing a mental
environment where bipolar people can reshape their views of their condition and
move fluidly from concepts of illness to excellence.
Ultimately, The Bipolar Advantage will stand as a guide book for those who
don't want to accept a diminished view of their lives after a diagnosis of
bipolar. It s a road map to wellness and strength that will stand the test of
time and the changing winds of popular bipolar treatment modalities.
Buy the: Book
 How
Children Become Violent: Why Disrupted Attachment Patterns Trigger Pathological
Behavior - (Professional Version - red cover)
by Kathryn Siefert
This book is written for professionals working in the mental health,
child welfare, juvenile justice/criminal justice, and research fields, as well
as students studying these fields and individuals affected by violence. The
author has made the book readable for anyone who is interested in this area or
is raising a child with attachment problems. Her goal is to make a case for the
fact that juvenile and adult violence begins very early in life, and it is both
preventable and treatable. Her research and experience, gained through over 30
years in this profession, will demonstrate that society must intervene early in
the lives of children living in violent, neglectful, criminal, and
substance-dependent families. Appropriate care, safety, and health for all
children is in the world-s best interest. This is not to justify dangerous
behavior by adults. Both adults and adolescents must take responsibility for
their behavior. However, if we have the capacity to assess, prevent, and treat
violence and sexual offending, and to prevent future offending behaviors, to not
do so is a crime. Punishment has never been an adequate answer, for in the
United States, it is often puritanical and usually useless in protecting
society. That is also not to say that dangerous people should not be kept away
from society. But while they are sequestered from the general public, we need to
do what we can to ensure that they do not repeat their mistakes. This is why the
author and her colleagues are in the preventative and treatment fields of
psychology trying to advance. Social services, juvenile justice, criminal
justice, public policy, mental health and addictions treatment, and forensic
hospitals need major reform - reform that is based on research and not revenge.
A system that does the same old thing and expects different and better results
is itself ill. However, with the correct intervention, this cycle can be broken,
which creates a safer environment for all of society.
Buy the: Book
History of Swimming
"This is a riveting memoir, sensitive, wise and unsparing." --
Diane Sawyer
The History of Swimming details author Kim Powers' frantic search for his twin
brother Tim -- his best friend, his greatest enemy -- who disappears from
Manhattan one weekend in his late twenties. Kim -- almost mystically -- imagines
that the clues to Tim's whereabouts have been planted in a series of letters
written by Tim over the years, part of an ongoing cat-and-mouse game between the
two brothers.
Now, Kim uses the letters as a sort of roadmap that takes him back to Texas,
the setting of their greatest triumphs and tragedies: their mother's death,
Tim's nervous breakdown, first loves, coming out, a best friend's brutal rape.
But is it a race against time for somebody still alive, or already dead?
Buy the: Book
 Divided
Minds
This harrowing but arresting memoir—written in alternating voices by
identical twins, now in their 50s—reveals how devastating schizophrenia is to
both the victim and those who love her. The condition, which afflicts Pamela (an
award-winning poet), can be controlled with drugs and psychiatry, but never
cured. When the twins were young, Pamela always outshone Carolyn. But in junior
high, Pamela was beset by fears and began a lifelong pattern of cutting and
burning herself. After the two entered Brown University, Pamela's decline into
paranoia accelerated until she attempted suicide. During the ensuing years of
Pamela's frequent breakdowns and hospitalizations, Carolyn became a
psychiatrist, married and had two children. Empathetic and concerned, Carolyn
nonetheless conveys her overwhelming frustration. and occasional alienation from
her sister, when she is unable to help. Pamela's schizophrenia caused their
father to sever his relationship with her. Remarkably descriptive, Pamela's
account details how it feels to hear voices and to suspect evil in everyone.
Though she struggles with her medications, Pamela remains a committed poet and
is now reconciled with her father and close to her twin.
Buy the: Book
 72
Hour Hold
This powerful story of a mother trying to cope with her daughter's bipolar
disorder reads at times like a heightened procedural. Keri, the owner of an
upscale L.A. resale clothing shop, is hopeful as daughter Trina celebrates her
18th birthday and begins a successful-seeming new treatment. But as Trina
relapses into mania, both their worlds spiral out of control. An ex-husband who
refuses to believe their daughter is really sick, the stigmas of mental illness
in the black community, a byzantine medico-insurance system—all make Keri
increasingly desperate as Trina deteriorates (requiring, repeatedly, a "72
hour hold" in the hospital against her will). The ins and outs of working
the mental health system take up a lot of space, but Moore Campbell is terrific
at describing the different emotional gradations produced by each new circle of
hell. There's a lesbian subplot, and a radical (and expensive) group that offers
treatment off the grid may hold promise. The author of a well-reviewed
children's book on how to cope with a parent's mental illness, Moore Campbell
(What You Owe Me) is on familiar ground; she gives Keri's actions and decisions
compelling depth and detail, and makes Trina's illness palpable. While this
feels at times like a mission-driven book, it draws on all of Moore Campbell's
nuance and style.
Buy the: Book
 A
Beautiful Mind
If you've read the book, see the movie. If you've seen the movie, read the book.
Both received NAMI Special Awards in 2002 for the Greatest Contribution to
Public Education About Mental illness. The biography of Nobel Prize-winning
mathematician John Nash charts a path of struggle and recovery from
schizophrenia. The Academy Award winning movie is still changing public
perceptions of mental illness forever.
Buy the: Book
| VHS
| DVD
 The Hours
Winner of NAMI's 2003 Outstanding Media Award for a Dramatic Motion Picture;
Nicole Kidman received an Academy Award for her performance as Virginia Woolf.
An authentic, balanced, although tragic portrayal of mental illness, emphasizing
individual dignity and the element of choice in embracing life.
Buy the: VHS
| DVD
 A Caveman's
Valentine
Winner of NAMI's 2001 Outstanding Media Award for a Dramatic Motion Picture
(starring Samuel L. Jackson). Even before A Beautiful Mind, this was the movie
that achieved a breakthrough in its heroic portrayal of a man with schizophrenia
who solves a murder mystery. It also contrasts with the A Beautiful Mind in the
method through which schizophrenia is portrayed.
Buy the: VHS
| DVD
 My
Sister's Keeper
Winner of NAMI's 2001 Oustanding Media Award for a
Television Movie, starring Kathy Bates and Elizabeth Perkins. It offers an
uplifting, non-stereotyped view of a person with mental illness and an at times
difficult, but loving relationship with her sister. Based on the book My
Sister's Keeper: Learning to Cope with A Sibling's Mental Illness.
Buy the: VHS
| Book
 Nature
Lessons: A Novel
Winner of one of NAMI's 2003 Literary Awards. A woman returns to South Africa to
search for her missing mother and truths about her family under apartheid. It
explores the paranoia that can be rooted either in mental illness or an
oppressive political regime. What is "real" and what is
"paranoid" may be confused or depend on a person's class or racial
perspective, and their impact affects a child's past, present, and future.
Buy
the book!
 Rescuing
Patty Hearst: Memories From A Decade Gone Mad
Winner of one of NAMI's 2003 Literary Awards. One year
after Patty Hearst was kidnapped and robbed a bank in 1974, the author writes,
"my mother lost her mind and kidnapped my sister and me to our family
cottage in rural, coastal Virginia. " She believed they had been inducted
into a secret army. "Trusted with setting up a field hospital, we lived in
that cottage for over three years. " Written from the perspective of an
adult child of a parent with mental illness, it explores how relatives,
neighbors and the medical and legal systems failed to provide the help they
needed.
Buy
the book!
 I Know This Much Is True
An epic novel covering three dysfunctional generations. A 40 year-old man whose
twin has schizophrenia struggles with issues of identity, emotion, alienation,
and renewal. His twin is both sympathetic and significant in offering
perspective on events. Dramatic tension is mixed with humor and a reasonably
happy ending.
Buy
the book!
 Call Me Anna: The
Autobiography of Patty Duke and A Brilliant Madness: Living with
Manic-Depressive Illness
One book tells actress Patty Duke's story while the other shares information
about bipolar disorder, based on her first-hand experience. Read separately or
together.
Buy: Call
Me Anna | Brilliant
Madness
 9 Highland Road: Sane Living for
the Mentally Ill
A non-fiction account of a group home in Glen Cove, New York, including intimate
portraits of the resident, their crises and therapy as well as the ignorance and
fears of wealthy neighbors in the community who tried to prevent the home from
opening. The author is a reporter for The New York Times and winner of the 1999
NAMI Outstanding Media Award for investigative reporting.
Buy
the book!
 Undercurrents: A Life
Beneath the Surface
A psychologist's highly readable memoir of her year-long descent and recovery
from depression--including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Marked by wit,
candor, irony and hope. Not many books about depression cause a reader to laugh
out loud -- while also feeling the author's pain -- but this one does.
Buy
the book!
Additional Book Suggestions
Unholy
Ghost: Writers on Depression
by Neil Casey
An
Unquiet Mind
by Kay Redfield Jamison
Don't
Call Me Nuts: Coping with the Stigma of Mental Illness
by Patrick Corrigan and Robert Lundin
Imagining
Robert: My Brother, Madness and Survival
by Jay Neugeboren
Transforming
Madness: New Lives for People Living with Mental Illness
by Jay Neugeboren
The
Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness
by Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett
The
Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
by Andrew Solomon
The
Day the Voices Stopped: A Journey from Madness to Hope
by Ken Steele and Claire Berman
Darkness
Visible: A Memoir of Madness
by William Styron
Telling
is Risky Business: The Experience of Mental Illness Stigma
by Otto F. Wahl
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